


Childverse

by fandomine



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: F/M, Female Apprentice (The Arcana), M/M, Male Apprentice (The Arcana), Multiverse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-05-14 19:53:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19280041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fandomine/pseuds/fandomine
Summary: Adam is a bastard with an unwarranted vendetta against the magician's assistant next door. It is to his shock to find out that they are very much married- in another world.





	1. Scandalous News

It's always an experience. Finding out your dad has a secret, I mean. How much you lose your mind depends on how weird the secret is.

"I'm something like a Time Lord," he'd said. "You know, like in Doctor Who."

I hadn't known what that meant.

I didn't care.

I have a wonderful wife and my hands are full with raising our daughter. Cynthia's a toddler now, but she's twice as smart as the other kids her age and we're having trouble keeping her out of... er, trouble. (Give me a fucking break. I'm not a writer. I sell plants.)

"And are we- you know-" Raen had said, after the long silence which followed my dad's breaking of the news. She'd taken my hand and squeezed. "Together...? In all the other universes?"

"Yes! It's rather fascinating, actually. In several many Universes, you two are happily together." He had paused then. "Well, in Universe 79.8, there was a bit of..."

He'd chewed his lip as he thought of the right word. I sipped my coffee; it had gone cold. " _Drama_ ," he said finally. "But it was resolved."

"That's great! Isn't it, honey?" Raen had beamed at me, and I'd felt so light under her gaze that I had almost forgotten my issues with this whole multiverse thing. She's always been more positive than me. A look-on-the-bright-side type. It's one of the many things that makes me fall for her, again and again, every single damn day. She drummed a tune on the table with her fingers, then got up to do what she always does when she's in a good mood (well, in any mood): make tea.

"I'm just so glad that I get to be with you, over and over again. Well, other versions of me. But still me, I guess." She turned from the tea kettle to look at me and my dad. "You know?"

"Why, yes, Miss Rosalind!" He hasn't stopped calling her that, even after we got married. I don't think old habits die easily for dad. "It's so very romantic. Love transcending the very universe, a red string of fate strung over the multiverse. Finding yourselves again and again."

"Yeah, yeah. But just wait a damn second."

Raen might be a positive person, glass-half-full and all that. But I'm not. "Hmmmmm?" hummed dad. "What about the other Universes? You said that we're together in 'several many' of them. Which is great-" I said, looking up hastily at Raen. "But what about the rest?"

Raen stopped her careful measuring of tea leaves. I hated to be such a wet blanket, as my sister puts its. But, damn it, I needed to know.

"Well. That's also rather fascinating," he said, in a slower and deeper tone. I frowned as he took his damn sweet time to eat the muffins Raen had made him.

"Well... that's a good question, actually," he continued slowly, and I wanted to bang my head on the table. "The you's, Adam, in quite a few of them have found something rather special in... well, you know Mister Amanita, yes?"

I nearly dropped my coffee cup just then. Raen looked over her shoulder, eyes wide.

"What-" I said, incredulous. "Did you fucking say?"


	2. Drawing The Curtain

**Yesterday**

Adam had been born frustrated, lived frustrated, and would die frustrated.

As a newborn, he had been mildly famous among the nursemaids for having "such an angry face for a baby". As a growing teenager, his brows and eyes and mouth had cemented themselves to dip down; this lent to the illusion of a disgruntled businessman. And as an old man, he would probably consider death an unfair inconvenience. Indeed, he would probably go into the afterlife and start an endless argument with God: "Y'know, I really don't like what you did with the whole  _plague of beetles_ thing, and I have thoughts on the concept of  _poverty_...."

But that's for later. He's only 27 now.

Only three things held his unraveling sanity together. These things were his wife; his daughter; and the assured daily opportunity to take his stress out on the magician's assistant down the street.

Adam all but kicked down the magic shop's door, frightening the man polishing the counter. He stalked in. He was allowed to do this only because he was Adam and, as everyone knew, Adam was an unstoppable force.

"H-hello."

Adam was a foreigner. Had been, was, and always would be, damned the passage of time. He didn't belong.

"What's up."

He had moved to Vesuvia from another city, where the people were taller, paler, and much more prideful. And so, he had been  _sure_ of his success in finding a job. However, Adam seven-years-younger was, on top of being unemployed, unemployable due to his offputting demeanour.

He had, for the life of him, been able to find a job. He spent countless, restless nights asking  _Why?_

The man behind the counter stood, stooped, like a guilty man walking into a confessional.

Then-Adam had been desperate, and then frustrated that he was desperate, and ashamed of himself that he was frustrated that he was desperate. Maybe  _that's_ why he was turned away so often: no one likes a man who so obviously feared failure.

Alternatively, maybe it was because no one could understand him. After all, he  _was_ foreign. He didn't speak anyone's language; looking back, he would be surprised if anyone even knew he'd been asking for a job. 

"C-can I help you with anything?" Nico asked, as Adam's stifling presence filled the room.

"No."

"I heard the weather's supposed to be nice," Nico tried, his voice coming out strained.

Adam snorted. "Supposed to storm, actually."

"Oh."

And so, to the younger Adam's surprise, the day he'd knocked on this magic shop's door- seven years ago- the owner had politely interrupted his stumbling, pathetically broken Vesuvian sentences, and spoke to Adam in his language.

The magician's kindness had made him so hopeful back then. So hopeful. He'd even applied for a job at the shop, even though sparkles and magic and tricks weren't really his thing.

"Is Asra here?"

"Um, no, I don't think so."

Adam looked positively disgruntled at the news. "When will he be back?"

"I-i don't know."

"Well, where did he go?"

"I don't know that either. I'm sorry."

Adam kicked dust around on the floor with his feet. He gave Nico a dirty look as he went back to polishing the counter, standing behind it with a smock and a smile and moving little rocks off the glass and doing what Adam should be doing, being what Adam should have been.  

God laughed at him. He could hear it within the rumble of the oncoming storm.

You see, Adam had asked for the job on a Wednesday. Nico had arrived on that Thursday, with his friendly face so much unlike Adam's. And then, on Friday, Adam lost the job he'd never had.

There was silence in the shop. "Well, tell me when he gets back," Adam said awkwardly.

"Sure. Of course. Do you want to, um, leave him a message for when he gets back?"

"No."

He  _wanted_ to keep pushing Nico around with some more pointed, passive-aggressive comments and a good bit of hard scowling. Wipe the smile off his face, all that.

But, as pissed as he was, he didn't know how to be vindictive for more than a few minutes. It wasn't in his God-given nature.

"Well. Bye."

"Oh! Er, have a good d-"

Nico was cut short by Adam slamming the door. The shingles rattled under the rain, and God laughed again (he  _swore_ he could hear it) as he got drenched in the storm.

 

* * *

 

Nico had been glad to hear that Adam had landed himself a job shortly after he'd gotten rejected from Asra's shop. Selling plants paid the bills, and that contended Adam, and  _that_ contended Nico.

Adam never found out that he'd only gotten the job by the skin of his teeth, and by Nico pulling some strings (Nico had volunteered part-time at the plant store before picking up his full-time job as a magician's assistant, so he had connections).

Adam had been unkind to him for the last seven years. But Nico was fine with it.

He was perfectly fine, despite the looks and comments and scowls, because he had someone waiting for him at home, who reminded him to be kind, always.

An amazing woman; a soft, earthly, and caring woman. He had Apotinia.

That night, he closed up shop. He hurried to turn off the lanterns, and pull the shutters, and cast the usual protection spell on the front and back doors. He walked home eagerly, and his heart leaped when he spotted the lights still on in the bedroom. That meant Apotinia was home, and still awake despite her long hours working at the apothecary.

The house was quiet. It was only the two of them, and the dog, and they kept a nice little garden in the back.

It was all he needed. It was home.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nico belongs to batterwitch.tumblr.com  
> Apotinia belongs to my friend Potya  
> Thanks to my dear friend Rissa for proofreading.


End file.
